Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: XXIV. How to Use an Article on the Clinical Manifestations of Disease

Clinicians rely on knowledge about the clinical manifestations of disease to make clinical diagnoses. Before using research on the frequency of clinical features found in patients with a disease, clinicians should appraise the evidence for its validity, results, and applicability. For validity, 4 issues are important-how the diagnoses were verified, how the study sample relates to all patients with the disease, how the clinical findings were …